Polar Night Diary
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Description
Book Introduction
The northernmost town in the United States, located at 71 degrees 17 minutes 26 seconds north latitude and 156 degrees 47 minutes 19 seconds west longitude.
The old name was Barrow.
Its current name is Utqiagvik, which means “where we hunt snowy owls” in the Inupiaq language of the indigenous people.
Population: approximately 4,500.
A place where Eskimos (Inupiat) have lived for over a thousand years.
Every year, from around May 10 to around August 2, the white nights last for more than 80 days, and from around November 18 to around January 22, the polar nights last for more than 60 days, when the sun does not rise.
A photo diary of mourning and looking for light in the darkness while spending 65 polar nights in this village after the death of my parents.
The old name was Barrow.
Its current name is Utqiagvik, which means “where we hunt snowy owls” in the Inupiaq language of the indigenous people.
Population: approximately 4,500.
A place where Eskimos (Inupiat) have lived for over a thousand years.
Every year, from around May 10 to around August 2, the white nights last for more than 80 days, and from around November 18 to around January 22, the polar nights last for more than 60 days, when the sun does not rise.
A photo diary of mourning and looking for light in the darkness while spending 65 polar nights in this village after the death of my parents.
- You can preview some of the book's contents.
Preview
index
prolog
polar night
white night
Epilogue: The Depth of Mourning
polar night
white night
Epilogue: The Depth of Mourning
Into the book
Sunday, November 20, 2022
/ 2:15 PM
I had thought that when my mother passed away, and if circumstances permitted, I would come into the darkness of this place, where the night lasted for 65 days, and think of her.
Alaska is a place where nature is so vast that it cannot be seen by humans.
In particular, this northern end is where the mysteries of the universe that humans cannot see are witnessed.
I wanted to think about the existence of my father and mother, about life, loss, and eternity, about sadness, about light in the darkness, in a place where such immense nature and the mystery of the universe could be felt in everyday life.
Polar night.
What is the light in the continuing night?
What is that darkness like?
The short days without the direct light of the sun feel less violent to me, at least not yet.
William Kentridge once created a work called “Refusal of Time,” and the midday sun, rising at almost the same time each morning and rising at its midday height, illuminating the world in a white, flat light, felt to me like an imposition of some kind of order.
In the city, time is thought of only as measured time.
1 minute, 10 minutes, 1 hour.
I can't watch time pass by.
The 24 time zones on Earth are based on the Greenwich Observatory in England.
For convenience? Actually, it's more than just convenience, but I don't want to talk about history or politics.
The city has domesticated every animal, every plant, every tree.
In the city, trees exist as if they are living in the gaps between buildings.
Perhaps time has become so domesticated.
And domesticated time is violent.
--- p.14
Monday, January 23, 2023
Today is a sunny day, but it's still cloudy and snowing.
Sunrise is at 1:03 PM, but I went to the eastern plains early around 11 AM with an excited heart.
The world has already become bright.
Sunrise at 1:03 PM.
Sunset at 2:15 PM.
A short day of 1 hour and 11 minutes.
The sky was overcast and snow was falling, but a faint, clear, pink vapor-like thing floated vaguely above.
And then it moved slightly to the side and disappeared.
Sunrise and sunset right next to it.
A winter space where the colors of the sky still reflect on the snow, making it seem like they are embracing each other.
Welcome, little match-like sun.
long time no see.
On November 18th of last year, when the last sunrise occurred, the clouds were so thick that the sun was not visible at all.
--- p.167
February 2, 2023
6:47 PM
Aurora knew my heart, knew me.
I found out.
It was as if a tremendously kind and enormous light had first looked at me, lowering its head and blinking its doe-like eyes through long, fluttering eyelashes, asking, "Who are you?"
And though she hadn't said a word, Lady Aurora, like a jellyfish with spots all over its body, like light that sensed all over its body, like light that spoke, like a clear vocal organ without moving her mouth, recognized me and smiled mischievously.
He smiled and changed the shape of his entire body in an instant, and he showed a new language by moving from one horizon to another.
Don't be sad, baby.
We are all light
Your weight is not yours
Look at you, white and lightly floating in the air
Your soul and your parents' soul are both light.
/ 2:15 PM
I had thought that when my mother passed away, and if circumstances permitted, I would come into the darkness of this place, where the night lasted for 65 days, and think of her.
Alaska is a place where nature is so vast that it cannot be seen by humans.
In particular, this northern end is where the mysteries of the universe that humans cannot see are witnessed.
I wanted to think about the existence of my father and mother, about life, loss, and eternity, about sadness, about light in the darkness, in a place where such immense nature and the mystery of the universe could be felt in everyday life.
Polar night.
What is the light in the continuing night?
What is that darkness like?
The short days without the direct light of the sun feel less violent to me, at least not yet.
William Kentridge once created a work called “Refusal of Time,” and the midday sun, rising at almost the same time each morning and rising at its midday height, illuminating the world in a white, flat light, felt to me like an imposition of some kind of order.
In the city, time is thought of only as measured time.
1 minute, 10 minutes, 1 hour.
I can't watch time pass by.
The 24 time zones on Earth are based on the Greenwich Observatory in England.
For convenience? Actually, it's more than just convenience, but I don't want to talk about history or politics.
The city has domesticated every animal, every plant, every tree.
In the city, trees exist as if they are living in the gaps between buildings.
Perhaps time has become so domesticated.
And domesticated time is violent.
--- p.14
Monday, January 23, 2023
Today is a sunny day, but it's still cloudy and snowing.
Sunrise is at 1:03 PM, but I went to the eastern plains early around 11 AM with an excited heart.
The world has already become bright.
Sunrise at 1:03 PM.
Sunset at 2:15 PM.
A short day of 1 hour and 11 minutes.
The sky was overcast and snow was falling, but a faint, clear, pink vapor-like thing floated vaguely above.
And then it moved slightly to the side and disappeared.
Sunrise and sunset right next to it.
A winter space where the colors of the sky still reflect on the snow, making it seem like they are embracing each other.
Welcome, little match-like sun.
long time no see.
On November 18th of last year, when the last sunrise occurred, the clouds were so thick that the sun was not visible at all.
--- p.167
February 2, 2023
6:47 PM
Aurora knew my heart, knew me.
I found out.
It was as if a tremendously kind and enormous light had first looked at me, lowering its head and blinking its doe-like eyes through long, fluttering eyelashes, asking, "Who are you?"
And though she hadn't said a word, Lady Aurora, like a jellyfish with spots all over its body, like light that sensed all over its body, like light that spoke, like a clear vocal organ without moving her mouth, recognized me and smiled mischievously.
He smiled and changed the shape of his entire body in an instant, and he showed a new language by moving from one horizon to another.
Don't be sad, baby.
We are all light
Your weight is not yours
Look at you, white and lightly floating in the air
Your soul and your parents' soul are both light.
--- p.187
Publisher's Review
Depth of mourning
Writing has an audience.
A diary is a form of writing that is like an isolated island where one's own readers are present.
One's memories become material for writing, and the writing bounces back against one's own wall.
Sometimes, diaries are written with others in mind, but they are only formally diaries, and in reality, they are closer to essays or miscellaneous writing.
The difficulty lies in the format of a diary.
The most thorough diaries are unlikely to gain the sympathy of others, and diaries written with the expectation of readers tend to stray far from the formality of a diary.
『Polar Night Diary』, which has the word "diary" in it, is not easy to read.
Just as in Rilke's novel, "The Notebooks of Malte," where many themes are endlessly intertwined in the stream of consciousness, in "The Polar Night Diary," the author's monologues repeatedly burst out, laden with sadness.
The records of the polar night lasting 65 days, the vivid memories of my parents facing death, the dreams that continue with my childhood memories, and the other texts they evoke swirl like an inescapable vortex in my diary.
'After my father passed away last year and my mother passed away this year, I felt sad and lonely, as if I was in deep darkness.
The city felt unfamiliar, and I couldn't adapt to the fast-paced world.'
The author hides in the darkness of the polar night from the reality and daily life that cannot accept condolences.
And I mourn.
"Polar Night Diary" shows the depth of grief that a person who has been loved conveys to the person who gave love.
She cries softly for 65 nights, like a motherless beast crouching in a cave.
'When I look back on all the places I've been, they were so lonely.
A place full of silence and sometimes scary.
I thought I had been doing well the past few months at home with my parents, but looking back, I can now see the loneliness and desolation of that place, which is difficult to describe.
'Life in this world, everyday life, was meaningless.
I wanted to die.
A person who does not belong in this world.'
If she had stayed in the house where all the clues to her memories remained, she might have sunk.
The Arctic village, the most deserted, the coldest, the most endlessly night-like, and the farthest from the writer's memory, became a place of rest.
Looking at the photographs taken by the author, nature reveals its existence as a quiet and grand abstraction.
The earth and sky of the universe, where no artificial objects obstructed her view, were accepting her condolences.
Everyone dies.
Those who survive must live.
It's time to forget it now.
Moderation is key.
I've become accustomed to 'mourning briefly and realistically'.
As I read 『Polar Night Diary』, I became curious about her parents beyond the author's grief.
How much did they love her that she was so sad? I believe this lament is the author's way of returning the love.
Because people will remember her mother and father as ‘people who knew how to love’ through ‘Polar Night Diary’.
Beautiful and simple people stayed on Earth for a while and then left.
True mourning is not directed at the mourner, but at the object of the mourning.
'I blankly stared at the sunset over the Incheon sea, and then I saw a building appearing like a giant, an apartment complex.'
I don't want to ask what the writer's mind was like when he returned to Korea.
I don't even want to say what it takes to make 『Polar Night Diary』 more readable.
This is because the publication of 『Polar Night Diary』 itself has already achieved its purpose of mourning.
The time spent refining, adding photos, and agonizing over editing the bundle of writings he had brought from the polar night passed like a rite of passage, making the writer belong to this world.
I hope you enjoy every moment of the future, as it approaches you like a mystery of the universe.
Chatjipti Book Review: The Time Before Light, or After - "Polar Night Diary"
"Polar Night Diary" is written in the darkness of Barrow, Alaska, but its true setting may be time itself.
In this book, time moves like a spiral rather than a straight line, and mourning sways like a pendulum of emotions that continues day by day.
This essay, which takes the form of a diary, follows the emotions of the day, the light of the sky, the gestures of the cat Chibu, and fragments of memories that suddenly come to mind, rather than a linear narrative.
Just as we experience a subtle difference in darkness each day under the polar night sky, each page of this book has a different texture of darkness.
The reader is led to follow the knots, not the emotional lines, in it.
Grieving is not a journey of set steps, but a time of pauses, turning back, starting again, and sometimes staying in the same place.
『Polar Night Diary』allows that movement to happen as it is.
Quiet moments with my cat, Chibu, long nights waiting for the aurora, the stillness of a snowy day.
Every moment is placed on a map of equally important emotions.
The lingering feeling between the pictures, the sentences, and the spaces.
This book tells a lot of stories through things it doesn't say.
So these diaries ultimately become records of something - the time before light, or after.
To those who pass through that time, 『Polar Night Diary』 is like a warm winter blanket, or a hand gesture that hands out a star.
This book asks that question.
“When was your polar night?”
And very slowly, wait.
Until we get the answer out of our minds.
Writing has an audience.
A diary is a form of writing that is like an isolated island where one's own readers are present.
One's memories become material for writing, and the writing bounces back against one's own wall.
Sometimes, diaries are written with others in mind, but they are only formally diaries, and in reality, they are closer to essays or miscellaneous writing.
The difficulty lies in the format of a diary.
The most thorough diaries are unlikely to gain the sympathy of others, and diaries written with the expectation of readers tend to stray far from the formality of a diary.
『Polar Night Diary』, which has the word "diary" in it, is not easy to read.
Just as in Rilke's novel, "The Notebooks of Malte," where many themes are endlessly intertwined in the stream of consciousness, in "The Polar Night Diary," the author's monologues repeatedly burst out, laden with sadness.
The records of the polar night lasting 65 days, the vivid memories of my parents facing death, the dreams that continue with my childhood memories, and the other texts they evoke swirl like an inescapable vortex in my diary.
'After my father passed away last year and my mother passed away this year, I felt sad and lonely, as if I was in deep darkness.
The city felt unfamiliar, and I couldn't adapt to the fast-paced world.'
The author hides in the darkness of the polar night from the reality and daily life that cannot accept condolences.
And I mourn.
"Polar Night Diary" shows the depth of grief that a person who has been loved conveys to the person who gave love.
She cries softly for 65 nights, like a motherless beast crouching in a cave.
'When I look back on all the places I've been, they were so lonely.
A place full of silence and sometimes scary.
I thought I had been doing well the past few months at home with my parents, but looking back, I can now see the loneliness and desolation of that place, which is difficult to describe.
'Life in this world, everyday life, was meaningless.
I wanted to die.
A person who does not belong in this world.'
If she had stayed in the house where all the clues to her memories remained, she might have sunk.
The Arctic village, the most deserted, the coldest, the most endlessly night-like, and the farthest from the writer's memory, became a place of rest.
Looking at the photographs taken by the author, nature reveals its existence as a quiet and grand abstraction.
The earth and sky of the universe, where no artificial objects obstructed her view, were accepting her condolences.
Everyone dies.
Those who survive must live.
It's time to forget it now.
Moderation is key.
I've become accustomed to 'mourning briefly and realistically'.
As I read 『Polar Night Diary』, I became curious about her parents beyond the author's grief.
How much did they love her that she was so sad? I believe this lament is the author's way of returning the love.
Because people will remember her mother and father as ‘people who knew how to love’ through ‘Polar Night Diary’.
Beautiful and simple people stayed on Earth for a while and then left.
True mourning is not directed at the mourner, but at the object of the mourning.
'I blankly stared at the sunset over the Incheon sea, and then I saw a building appearing like a giant, an apartment complex.'
I don't want to ask what the writer's mind was like when he returned to Korea.
I don't even want to say what it takes to make 『Polar Night Diary』 more readable.
This is because the publication of 『Polar Night Diary』 itself has already achieved its purpose of mourning.
The time spent refining, adding photos, and agonizing over editing the bundle of writings he had brought from the polar night passed like a rite of passage, making the writer belong to this world.
I hope you enjoy every moment of the future, as it approaches you like a mystery of the universe.
Chatjipti Book Review: The Time Before Light, or After - "Polar Night Diary"
"Polar Night Diary" is written in the darkness of Barrow, Alaska, but its true setting may be time itself.
In this book, time moves like a spiral rather than a straight line, and mourning sways like a pendulum of emotions that continues day by day.
This essay, which takes the form of a diary, follows the emotions of the day, the light of the sky, the gestures of the cat Chibu, and fragments of memories that suddenly come to mind, rather than a linear narrative.
Just as we experience a subtle difference in darkness each day under the polar night sky, each page of this book has a different texture of darkness.
The reader is led to follow the knots, not the emotional lines, in it.
Grieving is not a journey of set steps, but a time of pauses, turning back, starting again, and sometimes staying in the same place.
『Polar Night Diary』allows that movement to happen as it is.
Quiet moments with my cat, Chibu, long nights waiting for the aurora, the stillness of a snowy day.
Every moment is placed on a map of equally important emotions.
The lingering feeling between the pictures, the sentences, and the spaces.
This book tells a lot of stories through things it doesn't say.
So these diaries ultimately become records of something - the time before light, or after.
To those who pass through that time, 『Polar Night Diary』 is like a warm winter blanket, or a hand gesture that hands out a star.
This book asks that question.
“When was your polar night?”
And very slowly, wait.
Until we get the answer out of our minds.
GOODS SPECIFICS
- Date of issue: March 16, 2025
- Page count, weight, size: 224 pages | 658g | 210*150*26mm
- ISBN13: 9791199146501
- ISBN10: 1199146501
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